Synthesis of Anticancer Agents for Targeted Therapy
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Medicinal Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 246
Special Issue Editor
Interests: organic chemistry; medicinal chemistry; organic synthesis; anticancer drugs; drug design and drug discovery
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Molecularly targeted therapy is the latest cancer treatment. It involves finding a so-called molecular target, a feature or process in the tumor which can be activated to destroy or limit the growth of cancer cells. This target is determined for a specific cancer in a specific patient, making the treatment more effective and less harmful to healthy cells than, for example, standard chemotherapy. During targeted therapy, treatment focuses on destroying the disease and reducing the risk of nuisance side effects. Currently, a number of compounds are known to act selectively on various cancer cells, inhibiting molecular pathways in the process of oncogenesis by delivering drugs directly to cancer cells. The drugs used in targeted therapy act selectively, for example, on receptors for growth factors and dividing cells, antigens formed when genes are mutated in cancer cells, proteins responsible for the induction of apoptosis, and proteins that regulate the cell cycle and inhibit angiogenesis near the tumor.
In this Special Issue of the Molecules, we would like to focus on the design, synthesis, structural analysis, and study of the mechanisms of action of new chemical compounds that fit into the strategy of targeted therapy. We invite submissions of original research articles and comprehensive reviews covering a wide range of topics related to the discovery of new anticancer substances with potential for use in targeted therapy, including drug design, structure–activity relationship (SAR) studies, innovative synthetic strategies, and evaluation of the anticancer activity of new substances and explanation of the molecular mechanisms underlying their anticancer activity.
Dr. Małgorzata Jeleń
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- organic synthesis of anticancer compounds
- targeted cancer therapy
- medicinal chemistry
- structure–activity relationship (SAR)
- molecular-targeted therapy
- drug development
- chemotherapeutic agents
- cell signaling pathways
- monoclonal antibody
- cancer-altered pathway
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